A portion of an infant or child's car seat, booster seat (with or without a fixed or detachable seat back), stroller seat (whether fixed or detachable), or other infant or child seat where the cup holder is located is generally one of the widest parts of a seat. It is typically widest because the cup holder is usually placed along one side of the child seat and can extend horizontally out from the remaining portion of the side frame of that side of the child seat.
It is beneficial to reduce the width footprint of the child seat in order to, for example, maintain the designed seating capacity of the vehicle that the child seat is placed in or maintain a narrow footprint for a stroller used in narrow spaces. Reducing the overall width footprint of the child seat can also help to insure, for example, that the child seat (e.g., a car seat or booster seat) remains within the seat belt area of the vehicle or that the stroller seat and cup holder are substantially contained between the wheels and/or side frames of the stroller. However, many consumers feel a cup holder is a necessary feature of a child seat. Therefore, reducing the width footprint of the child seat may typically need to be achieved without removing the cup holder.
Conventional methods for reducing the amount of space needed for a cup holder include making a portion of the cup holder out of a non-deformable material, such as hard plastic, and another portion of the cup holder that extends outside of the standard frame of the child seat out of a deformable material, such as a deformable plastic. In this embodiment, an adult can deform the outer portion of the cup holder towards the non-deformable portion of the cup holder when not in use. In another conventional method, an outer portion of the cup holder is removed and replaced with an elastic band that only extends outward from the standard frame of the child seat when a cup is placed within the cup holder. However, each of these conventional designs suffer from a number of drawbacks.